Bullet to Beijing

On Sunday we were ready to start the Beijing leg of our China adventure and to get there we would be taking a $100 per person bullet train ride.

When we arrived at the train station we went right to the 'Information' booth that had that spelled out in English.  Excellent!  Unfortunately English was not a language that they spoke behind the counter.  But after some pointing, repeated questions and lots of head nods, we felt pretty sure we were waiting at the right track.

We got on and could spread out, as the train was really pretty empty for this first leg of the few stops it would make, on the way to Beijing.  It's a good thing it was empty too because the large American suitcases needed to have some room.

I looked over at Ran as she sat there lookin cool, having a sucker. She gave me a big thumbs up and said "we made it".  I found that to be really cute and funny.

For lunch on the train we were served a tray of rice, vegetables, some chop suey,  a few little chicken wings and a cup of soup. All for 35 RMB (about $5).  Everything was really pretty good.  The only thing was that the soup said it was 'laver egg' soup.  After just touring that silk factory tour yesterday I couldn't help but question if there was a small spelling mistake on the soup description.  I thought of asking the stewardess about it but decided not to...I really wasn't hungry for soup anymore anyways. Looking it up later I found out 'laver' is another word for 'seaweed'.  So that picture of the little guy in the top right corner of the soup cup, is not a cute characterization of a unhatched insect....nooooo, of course not.






Eventually the train filled up and we sat next to a young professor of physiology who spoke some English and was very nice.  The train cooked along near it's top speed of 308 KPH (191 MPH) most of the time, with the scenery usually being rice fields and tree farms.  It was a very comfortable and enjoyable ride all in all.

When we got off the train we had to find and meet our guide for the week.  As we exited the track area we found him right away.  He said he knew it was us because we were the only Americans in the crowd and we knew it was him because he had a sign with both of our full names, with middle names, as they appear on our passports. Little embarrassing...at least the Fitzgerald part.